The One with the Centipede
The One With The Centipede I think, honestly, that twelve months have passed. It feels like it’s been a year since everyone died… well, not everyone. Most of the population. Hell of a time to be on holiday, when the world ends. All that pain, all those deaths. I don’t even know if my family back home died out completely. What I do know is that there’s a big needle out here. Not sure where I’ve seen it before, but I’m pretty damn sure it’s Seattle. The map I robbed off that corpse about thirty miles back had it circled, and next to it in big red letters…. Unified Society. Yeah, I heard about these guys. The advertised good guys, reaching out like a hand across the west. Setting up shop around Seattle, and then extending outward toward other great cities. A stark difference from the settlements to the east, where I’ve been lucky to escape a particular bunch o’ nut jobs. What kinda group calls themselves Dynasty, or whatever? Quasi Chinese communists, that’s what it sounds like. Politics is best left alone. After all, with over six billion dead, they hardly have enough people to even run an entire country. Neither does this new US. But hey, I’d rather have a vote. It’s all that counts. That, and survival. Besides, in a more democratic society, I might be able to mass purchase morphine. This burn on my arm, this writhing agony-filled piece of skin, needs to be injected with painkillers else I’ll slowly go mad from anguish. Making the blood red constructs at random whenever the pain kicks into high gear makes the agony even worse, and I end up frenzied. I’ve killed a few people accidentally through this. They thought it’d be funny to harass me, but when I get dangerous…. Let’s just say I get the last laugh. Really, lemme explain. What feels like twelve months ago, pandemic hits. You’ve seen the film Contagion, and it’s a bit like that but over a single week. No one was sure how, because… well, seven billion down, no government… that kinda skews your outlook. The difference, minus the lack of a dark ambient soundtrack, is that every survivor gained abilities. Every tree, every bear, every shark…. All living things gained abilities. Again, no one knows why. I’ve seen some awesome powers, some that’re pretty shite. Mine fall into the ‘flawed yet useful’ category, but they still suck. Okay, so basically I can burn things. Simply put. My second power is creating things outta pain. Weaponise my pain; the more pain the better, yadda yadda. Now, those sound cool, I guess. On the edgy twelve year old scale, definitely an eight point eight. Until you accidentally weaponise your arm. Which I still haven’t worked out how to replicate. Not that I want a pulsing blob of flesh searing me twenty four seven. And I also don’t like my accidental face burn, either. It needs to be activated, my abilities. And one day, I did it subconsciously and put a palm on my pasty Scottish face. It should heal, but I doubt it will. Its third degree and here for life. Of course, I burnt a pattern into my stomach and chest, and I lie about burning off my tits because it’s fucking hilarious. Total ruse master fresh from the land of drunkenness and cabers. Or something. Anyway, this is totally boring. Recounting being burned is too deep for me. Should I talk about the incident the other day? Yes. So, here I am, middle of the desert, fucking nowhere near anywhere, right? And this dude comes up to me with about a billion legs. Some kinda half-centipede freak. Spitting fire like a widowed old woman after seven shots of JD, coming at me all like ‘Bitch, gimme ya money” which kinda made me chuckle. What am I gonna pay him in? Knickers? Spoons!? I’m not gonna fuck a myriapod, am I? So obviously, I told him I have no money, and started on my way. Now, that was a mistake. Centipedes are fast, and a man sized one is even faster. He coiled around me and tried to pen me in, which was the second mistake. He told me again to give him money, which was obviously redundant. Now, if I were the snotty kid I was back in primary school, I’d have sunk to my knees and cried. But as I placed a hand on his underbelly, he was the one doing all the crying. He squealed and screamed in anguish, recoiling back a few meters, the searing burn occupying the last of his higher functions. It gave me enough time to construct my good ol’ Pain Makers… nothing fancy like a gun or a sword, but knuckle dusters. What? I’m Scottish, we fight with our fists! At the time I wasn’t able to finish my own thought as the mass of legs and carapace threw itself at me. Claws slashed past my shoulder as he threw me to the side. I was lucky enough to dodge the sweeping body as I rolled away, groaning in pain. Oh, he had it now. As I rose back onto my legs, it seemed to wait, the last vestige of humanity left in the former human-turned abomination. Were this real life, his honour might’ve been sweet. In this place, it was an opening. Obviously, as I dashed forward, he dropped the gentleman act and went on the offensive. This time, though, he started breathing fire. Yes, actual fire. And, of course, he thought it’d work. Fortunately, the tactical burn was having an effect, as it slowed down the undulations of his head and neck as I ran around trying to get to a blind spot. Did you know that insects that can turn around and around have no blind spots? I didn’t. Lucky for me, he had to twist back; else he’d have decapitated himself. This gave me enough time to do a silly thing and rush in. Of course, he was already aiming for my neck with his fangs, and so I had to let him take a different body part. My shoulder. Oh, pain. Fluid and agonising. A rush of adrenaline and that oh so sweet release. Accompanied by, you know, groaning. I’m still not used to being stabbed by things, but I’ll grow accustomed to it. And I’ve never been poisoned, so that’s a first. Luckily, I kept enough focus to burn his fangs closed so only a drop got through. It’s enough to make me retch a little, but not too much that it’ll ruin my day forever. He obviously hasn’t noticed, and his human side… what little of that remained… is gone in an instant. I’m lucky he isn’t breathing fire on me, burning isn’t fun either. Oh, but I had a smirk on my face. The hapless animal had made me bleed, put me in pain. The construct on my hand, the duster, has three inch spikes protruding from the knuckles. I laughed softly, my feral nature coming out as I grasped his head tightly in my right arm. I tensed my fist, looking at him as he began squirming. But alas, this guy wasn’t getting away. I counted to three in my head… well, two, before I introduced my fist to his organs. So what happened was…. His head…. Disconnected from the rest of his body. I sorta smashed in his carapace, trashed his organs and as he died I just carried on punching until I was clean through…. Recounting these stories, especially the endings, really bugs me. Haha, geddit? Ahem… my sanity is slowly slipping, so I have to snap myself out of it. It’s getting harder, what with all this pain, but I should be fine. I had to walk around with his fang tips in my shoulder as I scoured the land for bandages. Lucky for me, then, that I found an unraided medical clinic in the middle of an all death town. That is, one where no one survived the event. It’s where I found the map, the bag and the painkillers in the back pocket. Poor bastards, they were corpses likely killed by a big beasty out in the desert. I also stole her bra because it was a nice colour and I needed another. She was dead. Aren’t fucking in the afterlife, are they? I have WOMANLY NEEDS. So, shopping! So uh anyway, I think I can see the city now. I hear waves, too… so it might be submerged. Still, as the map points to it, it must be important. And I’m thoroughly sick of talking to myself. Cheerio, wastes! Vesta Varley has a modern Atlantis to explore!